Sept. 10 Talk Back after 5:30pm Show

Susan Rosenberg: Now before you turn the tables on your audience: I want to ask you to just say a few words about the third run, and you’ve been getting feedback along the way, so about how you're choreographing the audience and how the piece keeps changing the different tasks, and personalities, different relationships between people who are performing and in the audience as well

Noemie Lafrance: Yeah, so yesterday we did a first go of the piece in the context of an opening so people didn’t know and there were drinks and bars and was very crowded so it quite different and I had expected it to be and today we had a smaller audience at first, but this is, I think, a good sized audience for the piece wants to be. It’s always different so far, so it’s hard to tell. We would like the audience to participate, but we would also not like to tell them to participate so that’s one of the ideas we’re working with. One of the reactions from yesterday to the first performance was that if we didn’t move the audience then it felt like it just didn’t come through at all, so we started to become more demanding without aggressive but more firm, but now in this edition it feels like we could be more flexible perhaps or it becomes a little bit obvious that we’re trying to move you and I don’t know if it’s only a question of moving you around but I do like the idea of, it seems at least yesterday, that people appreciate the feeling of transformation like the space was being transformed and they were a part of that. So that’s kind of where we’re at.

SR: So you’re interested to hear from the audience about when they felt like moving or felt moved upon or when they felt separate from the performers, if anyone is willing to talk about that. The last conversation we had there were points of tension in the performance where people felt that didn’t know if they were being invited in or pushed out, and in ways that became an interesting experience in that moment for the audience because they w ere caught in their own mind of did they want to, or were they willing to take the risk of breaking through and entering the performance, but they didn’t know from the choreographer or the dancers whether they were welcomed or not and that was an interesting thing, but watching as I am it’s hard for me to tell, what you’re all experiencing and we also talked about how certain points of the piece really want to move the audience as a mass, or as a group or break them up into group and the performers are interacting as a group with another group and that becomes a special thing or an object like thing And another point there seemed to be more one on one interaction.

A: I had some one on one interaction I really enjoyed. A lot of eye contact, extended eye contact with pretty dancers And I felt really invited when it was the simple touch and squats – that was really direct thing I feel like if that as introduced earlier somehow giving us the space to be more interactive

A: I feel like at the beginning I was really excited about being interactive and then I was like ehh I don’t know but then I got invited again, so I was a little unsure.

A: Related to that, the point of tension, I was almost lacking with a little interaction with the audience, it was only moving as a mass with the audience – there was almost an increased intensity when you have that confrontation with another audience member instead of a dancer. The movement of the mass can create the stranger confrontation and in the dynamic of New York City or any city where you have this intense proximity at times but there is also anonymity and so you can force the contact with strangers when you’re moving as a mass

A: To go off of that, Fabio came and other people were doing stuff and he came and he stood next to me and someone else in the audience, then he went off and did other stuff but then he came back to that exact same spot. And somehow to me that felt oh, he’s with us. And that felt more inviting than just the one time inviting. Felt like not so much chance that he was there, like he was set to be with us.

A: I’m set to jump off the gentleman’s comment about the squatting I think that the squatting works for those who figured out the rules of the game because as audience members we could do the same thing as the dancers without feeling lesser or like we were missing some part of the overall picture or some secret, you know I think it s a very difficult thing to engineer audience participation with them feeling like participants on equal footing without feeing like the subspecies (Laughter) among these higher more evolved beings who are running around them, it can be intimidating and nerve racking but there, for some reason, probably because of the simplicity …

A: I think it was because of the repetition of it, like it became clear that something was expected of us as they came around and touched us and kept doing it was clear and was being shown when they touched each other they were sitting down so it was like oh

A: I think it’s also about the relationship because I know I was touched many times and never squatted. I think it was sort of snarky, like ‘I know what you’re doing, but I’m not going to get down there too” but if there’s that relationship where if one person dances with me and I can tell it’s an invitation, and I did dance back, so I think, it is definitely about moments between you and dancers.

Risa Steinberg: I was wondering if you care about the amount of time you give us permission to disengage?

NL: Disengage with the performance at all? Well, right now the structure is very loose, it’s like everything but the kitchen sink in there, so I put everything, and we’re going to change the piece over the weeks based also on your feedback. So we’ve struggled over the past couple of weeks with the order, because we have all these parts and we didn’t know how we wanted to put them together, and we didn’t know what should come first and I was struggling with ‘if I reveal all these dancers too early, maybe that’s not good, and then there’s certain things that seem to open and close the space better or more contrast in terms of how we are using the space. So things seem to lead to another

It’s not perfect yet, well it’ll never be perfect, but it’s not working the way it is but it was the best order we could find and I found some holes and dips – moments that are strong but we kind of have to get from this to that. So I’m interested in hearing what moments feel strong regardless, maybe they are not that interactive but that maybe they don’t succeed at bringing the audience in but maybe they succeed at something else…

RS: I think someone should, when standing in your face, but there were a few times if I didn’t move, I just became more interested in something else. Especially one time when I was here and all dancers were there. And there were lots of people…

NL: and you couldn’t see…

RS: Well I’m very tall but (laughter) no, right and I thought okay I could move forward or I could look at the sky. Do you want that, are you giving me permission to not care about being disengaged?

NL: Well I think that’s very interesting because yesterday because it was in the context of an art opening it felt and it wasn’t the a performance that you come to and buy a ticket and this and that – it felt more okay to be that way because there isn’t that expectation of okay I need to be entertained every second, and it was great because some people didn’t care and other people were really curious about what was going on and people were getting amused and different reactions…and I think in that context that felt good because there were some moments of emptiness, moments where you would disengage and it’s like you’re allowed to talk to your friends in this piece. I want to take everyone’s phones and keep them with the bags, but we’ll see if we get there – maybe by the third week.

RS: And I think you have the right as a creator to not care if we stay engaged, you get to have that power in a way I was just curious if you made that choice?

NL: Yes, partly – There is this idea of if you succeed or not if you’re not sustaining the audience attention, but I feel like in this work it should have that flexible that you can kind of wander and get interested again and wander…which is kind of how life is – if you’re walking down the street and something interesting oh watch that and go on and be in your head or whatever.

RS: So it’s still not a theater perspective

NL: No, right – We’re working to break that.

A: I feel that many times an urge to want to participate and was hesitant but then one of your tall male dancers, that handsome one over there, several times he would look at me and go like this (a welcoming gesture with his hands) it was the only indication that I really felt and I thought if more of the dancers had actually done that, I might have joined in, but that was very inviting.

Sam Petersson (dancer): I’m not supposed to even be doing that (Laughter)

A: But it I caught you doing it, and so then I thought maybe I should start then, but I thought if there were a few more instances, I mean it was subtle enough; I might have gone in and walked around with the group or danced.

NL: You know it’s funny, because this is not the first time that someone has brought up this idea of one on one and intimacy, and I think we are reaching out for the intimacy in the looking and things and I did tell the dancers to not go up to anyone and be like ‘heeyyy…join us…come participate.’ It’s all about the subtleties. He got caught, haha.

A: It sounds like there’s a wish for some cues almost, well if there were cues would I perform with them or not, maybe, is that how you’re reading the cue, kind of, a verge of a cue?

A: No cues.

Heather Hammond (dancer): We’ve talked about that, about how an audience in a traditional audience wants to be told what to do and what to expect. And so with this piece that is completely broken down and that’s really the question and so coming to this piece you’re experience is really something quite different and extraordinary and that really engages the audience in a new way and exploring those ideas as a dancer and it’s not like And so you’re the audience and we’re the performers, and now it’s time to applaud, but I do think it could be more comfortable for the audience if the cues were more direct. Now it’s your turn to join and now your going to watch.

NL: But then it would be obvious

A: But there might be a way to spilt the difference.

A: Excuse me; I liked the confusion, of who was the audience and who was the actor. Because I didn’t know who exactly who was the actor and who was not and so in a way I was participating without knowing I was.

NL: I would love for this confusion to get even more confusing, but so far we have more or less a homogenic group of dancers, and it’s kind of inevitable.

A: The piece has a rhythm a start stop and changes and I wonder if playing with that rhythm might actually be another way to solve that problem of participating the rhythm of getting the audience, you might be able to if you have many more rhythms happening if that would be the cue you’re looking more in a much more subtle flirtation way…

NL: We have this inside joke, when I was telling dancers not to go up to people and tell them to participate I said ‘Do you go up to someone and say, Hey do you want to have sex with me? (laughter) So it’s sort of the same thing. No - you have to work it out. So we’re trying to find these subtleties. I couldn’t agree more – the rhythm has been hard to establish it because there times when we have to continue doing the thing until it yields results like moving or that thing or then the timing in terms of choreography or theatric substances is distributed so maybe it would gain from being simpler and less stuff and just going at it with perseverance.

A: I don’t think there’s too much stuff.

NL: Okay, good. We have more stuff. (laughter)


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Audience Member: Two things - I personally enjoyed very much when the ratio of the activity of the dancers and when there were a number who would fill were observing and then it was more even within the group because it felt like they were a part of the audience, when the ratio was a little more even it almost felt like they were a part of us. As opposed to us being a part of them.

Noemie Lafrance: So when you say ratio do you mean 20 people dancing?

A: No, like 20 people watching among us and 10 people running

NL: So less dancers doing stuff

A: So like unmasked. I actually got into moving around when they were engaging with us and at different angles. But at one point it felt like people, including myself, were participating without doing anything, the act of actually deciding I’m not going to do that. One lovely participant at one point behind me sat down when everyone sat down and when everyone stood she stood and then she didn’t sit down the next time - I saw the looks of her partner/husband and give him the cue that I’m not going to sit down and I should help her up because she’s pregnant, but I thought that as actually a lovely moment for her because she decided I am not going to sit down. But I thought that was participating because it’s hard for me to discern whether it’s disengagement…

NL: There was someone in the first talk who said I like to have to decide in my mind, ‘Am I going to do this? Am I going to do this?’ And this is part of the experience definitely. ‘I like this part - I can do this, Oh I’m doing to do it!’

A: Well, this was just wonderful. It was lovely to meet you. Thank you.

NL: You’re welcome. Thank you.